More than three decades after the notorious “honor roll murder” of a teen by his peers on New Year’s Eve in 1992, a man who spent more than a decade in prison for his role as a lookout during the killing is asking to have his conviction overturned following changes in state law.
Kirn Young Kim, then 16, wasn’t in the garage where his friends beat 17-year-old Stuart Tay to death at a Buena Park home, a brutal slaying that drew international attention. But under state law at the time, Kim was charged — and convicted — alongside the killers.
An honors student heavily involved in community service who was raised in a stable home and avoided gangs, drugs and alcohol, Kim’s tie to the plot to kill Tay shocked those who knew the then teenager. Despite his age, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to prison. He became a model prisoner behind bars, and in 2012 was granted parole.
But the law that allowed prosecutors to argue a “natural and probable consequences” theory that anyone involved in the plot that led to Tay’s death — including Kim — could face the same charges as those who actually beat Tay to death has since changed.
The law now requires that a defendant has to be aware of the killer’s intent or that there be some other evidence of their direct involvement in the killing.
As a result, Kim, now 49, has spent more than a half-decade seeking to vacate his high-profile murder conviction. As part of that effort, he took the stand on Thursday to testify on his own behalf during a hearing in a Santa Ana courtroom.
Kim, during his testimony Thursday, said he didn’t believe that his friend Robert Chan, who masterminded the killing, was actually going to carry it out. Chan had a history of bragging about illegal or violent behavior that hadn’t actually happened, Kim explained.
“I took it as just another one of his exaggerations,” he said.
Defense attorneys in earlier court briefs have described Kim at the time of Tay’s killing as an “immature, socially under-developed, yet bright and easily influenced 16-year-old.” They also described his time behind bars — during which he took part in numerous education programs — as the “finest example of how the courts are finally coming to terms with the mitigating aspects of youth and that minors can in fact be rehabilitated.”
But prosecutors have argued that it is “unbelievable” that Kim was not aware that his co-defendants planned to kill Tay, arguing that Kim knew what was going to happen and aided and abetted the actual killers.
Chan, at the time a Sunny Hills High School student, orchestrated the killing because he feared that Tay was going to tell authorities about a plan to rob a computer salesman.
Prosecutors allege that Chan gathered Kim and the other teens involved in the killing — Abraham Acosta, Mung Bong Hang and Charles Coe — outlined his plan, showed them a shallow grave he had dug in a backyard for Tay and rehearsed the killing.
Chang convinced Tay to meet him, prosecutors say. Chan and Acosta beat Tay with baseball bats and a sledgehammer for more than seven minutes, as he cried and begged for help. Then, they forced him to drink rubbing alcohol and sealed his mouth with duct tape. He choked on his own vomit.
Kim, according to court filings, was waiting in a nearby parking lot during the killing. Afterward, he allegedly drove Tay’s car to Compton in order to get rid of the vehicle.
The brutality of the murder, the sophistication of the planning and the fact that it was carried out by a group of teens from loving, mostly well-off families drew widespread attention to the case.
Kim on Thursday testified that he started hanging out with Chan after falling out with his former friends. Kim said his mother didn’t like his old friends, since they weren’t academic achievers. Chan, by comparison, was a valedictorian candidate with an early college acceptance. While Kim said he was an honor student in his own right, he acknowledged struggling to meet the standards of the highest achievers at his competitive high school.
“I was intelligent, but because of the super high-achieving students at my high school, I felt inferior,” Kim testified.
Kim said he was aware of rumors at their high school that Chan was involved in criminal activity. And weeks after they began hanging out, Chan convinced Kim to take the SAT exams twice on behalf of two other people, as part of a scam Chan was running.
But Chan also claimed to have ties to Asian gangs, at one point asked Kim to help him get rid of a body and spoke about killing other students, which Chan came to see as lies or exaggerations.
“There were numerous times Robert threatened to kill people but would take no action,” Kim testified.
Kim said he saw and heard portions of the “rehearsals” that Chan ran before the killing, and heard Chan say they were going to stick Tay in the hole. But he testified that he didn’t believe Chan was serious, particularly since the grave — which Kim said he was initially told was for a dog that died — didn’t seem big enough for a body.
“The hole being too small for him to fit in, it just seemed beyond reality,” Kim testified.
Kim’s testimony on Thursday ended before he began discussing the time frame of the actual killing. The testimony — along with attorney arguments — are scheduled to resume on Monday.
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